“Everybody ready?” Jayne asked as he reached for the airlock door.

Mal looked to River, who was holding a pistol in each hand. Zoë was on the catwalk with her shotgun. Mal had his own pistol in its holster, and a rifle in his hand.

“There are six of them waiting on the other side,” River told them.

“Let’s do this then,” Mal said.

Jayne opened the door, and Mal threw two flash bombs through to the other ship. Jayne went in first, followed by River, then Mal. Jayne hit two of them with Vera, and they were down. River kicked three of them rather quickly, and Mal hit the last with the butt of his rifle.

“Jacobs!” Mal yelled.

Jayne was looking around cautiously, but River was as calm as ever.

“Jacobs,” Mal yelled again, “Where are you, Jacobs?”

“Wo bu shin wo dah yan jing!” someone said from the other end of the room. It was too dark to see much.

“Wasn’t very nice of you to spring a trap on me, Jacobs.” Mal had his rifle trained on the spot that the voice had come from. “Throw down your weapons, and come out nice and slow.”

A pistol slid on the floor towards Mal’s feet, and then a man stood up with his hands in the air. The man was swearing in Chinese. Three more pistols slid out, and then three more men stood up quietly.

“So,” Mal said, “What was so important that you had to set this whole thing up for me?”

“How in the gorram verse did you know?” Jacobs asked.

“A little albatross told me.”

“You’re not makin’ any sense, Reynolds.”

“I get that a lot lately,” Mal said. “Now tell me what’s so gorram important that you had to go through all this trouble just for me.”

“You know what you did, Mal.”

“Remind me then.”

“You left me there, Reynolds,” he said. “You left me to die.”

“I left you with a medic!” Mal was close to yelling.

“A medic that was completely incompetent,” Jacobs said. “I was as good as dead, and you knew it. But you had to go lose your war.”

“It weren’t my fault we lost that war,” Mal said.

“You sure about that?”

“I do